The incident summary shows how the summer of 1964 unfolded in one particularly dangerous place: the small city of McComb, an hour and fifteen minutes south of Jackson.

Volunteers and local citizens alike reported acts of harassment that ranged from outright assault (Rev. Russell Bennett, from California, “dragged from car and beaten by several men”) to lower-level obstruction and interference (“staff member Mendy Samstein arrested for ‘failure to yield right of way’ while driving local Negro children for voter registration canvassing”). In the month of September, there were seven bombings in McComb alone.

In a 1995 oral history, conducted by the University of Southern Mississippi, Bryant told his interviewer about this period: “After Medgar Evers was killed [in 1963], I…had a fear of just any time…you were just a target. A man would be crazy to say he didn’t have fears.”

Those fears notwithstanding, Bryant continued to work for the local NAACP throughout the 1960s, remaining active through the 1990s.